Revenge Tragedy

Question 1

Genre

Answer 1

Term introduced in 1900

Series of Elizabethan and Jacobean plays from 1580-1620

Question 2

Conventions of revenge tragedy

Answer 2

Ghost of murdered victim prompts revenge
Metatheatricality
Madness
Murder

Question 3

Revenge Tragedy - Key ideas

Answer 3

Set abroad

Retributive private or public justice

Question 4

Revenge Tragedy - Key texts

Answer 4

Kyd - Spanish Tragedy
Marlowe - Jew of Malta
Webster - The White Devil
Middleton - Changeling 
Ford - 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
Shakespeare - Hamlet

Question 5

Thomas Kyd

Answer 5

Merchant Taylor known by Jonson, Marlowe and Heywood
Accused of atheism
Key works: Spanish Tragedy - REVIVED GENRE BASED ON ROMAN PRECEDENTS

Question 6

The Spanish Tragedy - key figures

Answer 6

Hieronimo and Isabella (parents of:)
Horatio (brother of the dead:)
Andrea (lover of:)
Bel-Imperia (who seeks revenge on his killers:)
Balthazar (Portuguese prince)
Lorenzo (brother of B-I)
Pendringano - b-i’s man (deceitful and hung for horatio’s death)

Question 7

The Spanish Tragedy - key themes

Answer 7

Revenge
Love - paternal (hieronimo's monologues)
Deception
Metatheatricality (masque)
Structure - chorus of revenge/Andrea

Question 8

The Spanish Tragedy - ideas

Answer 8

Love “tokens” - Bel-I’s scarf given to Horatio when he returns it from Andrea
Betraying figure (Pedringano - B-I’s watchman)
Overarching manipulator (Lorenzo)
False props (bottle with pedringango’s pardon)
Large amounts of Spanish/Latin/French - educated audience?
Language of battle in love

Question 9

The Spanish Tragedy - critics

Answer 9

Pollard - revenge often exceeds first wrongdoing and creates new victims; foreign setting chosen to deal with engagement in political issues and intense emotions; maximum pity gained by having characters v close to each other.

Question 10

The Spanish Tragedy - QUOTES

Answer 10

B-I’s scarf: “now wear thou it for both him and me” - represents revenge?
Lorenzo, on discovering B-I’s love for Horatio: “where words prevail not, violence prevails”
B-I’s agency in wooing: “I dart this kiss at thee”
Revenge - framing device(?) - “thou talkest of harvest when the corn is green”
Hieronimo as judge: “for blood with blood shall, whilst I sit as judge,/ be satisfied”
Hieronimo on play: “the plot is laid for dire revenge”

Question 11

John Ford

Answer 11

Elusive life - collaborated with Middleton, Dekker, and Webster.
Key works - ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore

Question 12

‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore - themes

Answer 12

Incest
Rapacious physicality
Love - platonic/sexual/as an illness
Marriage - love vs suitability 
Masque/metatheatricality

Question 13

’'’Tis pity she’s a whore” - critics

Answer 13

Hazlitt - Ford “decadent”

Foster - Ford reworks elements of city comedy within the tragic genre.

Question 14

'’Tis pity she’s a whore - key characters

Answer 14

Giovanni (brother and lover of:)
Annabella (newly married to:)
Soranzo (the past lover of:)
Hippolita
Putana (annabella's woman)
Vasques (soranzo's man)

Question 15

'’Tis pity - key ideas

Answer 15

Letter in blood from anabella to Giovanni saying their secret is discovered
Shakespearean removal of donado’s eyeballs for telling secret of incest to soranzo’s man
Symbolism of Anabella’s ring
Gruesome mutilation of anabella’s pregnant body

Question 16

'’Tis pity - key quotes

Answer 16

Giovanni - “one soul, one flesh, one heart, one all” - courtly address on his sister (but literal) - “nearness in birth or blood doth but persuade/ a nearer nearness in affection”
Hippolita - “revenge shall sweeten what my griefs have tasted”
Donado - “where’s the ring,/ that which your mother in her will bequeath’d / and charged you on her blessing not to give / to any but your husband?” A: “my brother in the morning took it from me”

Question 17

John Webster

Answer 17

Collaborated with Dekker, Middleton, Marlowe; apprentice to Henslowe. Wrote the Lord Mayor’s show Monuments of Honour for the Merchant Taylor’s in 1624.
Key works - the white devil.

Question 18

The white devil - key themes

Answer 18

1612. Wealth vs nobility
      Court corruption
      Infidelity/adultery/lust
      Manipulative figure/agent of protagonist; female equivalent
      Theatricality/disguise
      Supernatural/ghost of Isabella & dream scenes
      Set abroad in Italy - vittoria: “Venetian courtesan”
      Image of the yew tree, corrupt blood.

Question 19

The white devil - critics

Answer 19

Luckyj - not a simple revenge tragedy because revenges are implicated in the corrupt world. Flamineo a “tragic hero” or “comic manipulator”? Vittoria almost a “radical experiment”?

Question 20

The white devil - key characters

Answer 20

Brachiano (corrupt duke married to Isabella, in love with:)
Vittoria (married to Camillo, sister of:)
Flamineo (who fakes love to:)
Zanche (woman of vittoria)
Cornelia (mother of flamineo and vittoria)
Francisco (brother of Isabella, uncle of Giovanni, the new young duke)
Monticelso - (judge/cardinal)

Question 21

White devil - quotes

Answer 21

Brachiano wooing vittoria - “I’ll seat you above law and scandal”, allegorised as a “well-grown yew” in vittoria’s dream, “nay lower, you shall wear my jewel lower”. Vittoria characterised as a “counterfeit diamond”.
Isabella on rejection by B - “o that I were a man… I would whip some with scorpions” - “just anger” (dreams of torturing vittoria)
Monticelso to V: “were there a second paradise to loose/ this devil would betray it”. Flamineo - “o gold, what a god art thou”. V to B’s accusations of infidelity (discovering franciso’s letter) “what have I gained by thee but infamy?/ thou hast stained the spotless honour of my house”; on death - “my greatest sin lay in my blood/ now my blood pays for ‘t”
Fl: “we think caged birds sing, when indeed they cry”

Question 22

Thomas Middleton

Answer 22

Prolific writer of masques and pageants. Rival of Jonson. Key works: the changeling, a Chaste Maid in Cheapside

Question 23

The changeling - key themes

Answer 23

1622. COLLABORATIVE WORK WITH WILLIAM ROWLEY - links to the comic sub-plot! Household central (microcosm of the state), patriarchal hierarchy, love/lust, honour, appearance. Symbolism of dropping the glove (visualises rape); physical vs. Psychological appearance. Alchemy - Alesmero’s virginity potions.

Question 24

The changeling - critics

Answer 24

Ricks - duality of meanings of words “blood, will, act, deed, service” - linked to Webster’s Vittoria.
Dutton - play is an “unblinking observation” of effects of lust/£/power.
Ribner - B-J is a “spiritual changeling”
Hibbard - distinguishing feature: “absence of the heroic” - no avenger needed for bj/de Flores because they do it for themselves

Question 25

Changeling - key characters

Answer 25

Beatrice-Joanna (love of;)
Alesmero (rival of:)
Alonzo
Deflores (man of b-j's father)
Alibius (newly wed to Isabella)
Antonio (disguised madman wooing Isabella); likewise Francisco. 
Diaphanta (bj's Maid)

Question 26

Changeling - key quotes

Answer 26

Bj hating deflores: “you must stall a good presence with unnecessary blabbing” “this ominous ill-faced fellow more disturbs me/ than all my other passions”. D on dropped glove she rejects because he has touched “I should thrust my fingers/ into her sockets here”; “claim so much man in me” (bj wanting to kill Alonzo). Bj - “there’s horror in my service, blood and danger”, “how lovely now dost thou appear to me!”. Francisco to Isabella “this shape of folly shrouds your dearest love”. Bj on A’s ring finger “'’tis the first token my father made me send him”
“And I made him send it back again” now the two “engaged so jointly”. D: “if I enjoy thee not, thou ne’er enjoy’st;/ I’ll blast hopes and joys of marriage.” Bj to alesmero on discovery of all: “I have kissed poison for’t, stroked a serpent”; “mine honour fell with him, and now my life”

Question 27

'’Tis pity - heart quotes

Answer 27

Soranzo after finding out Annabella’s pregnancy: “I’ll rip up thy heart” (to find out the father) and “in this piece of flesh… had I lain up/ all the treasures of my heart!”
Giovanni - appearing with heart - “I digged for food”; “'’tis a heart… in which is mine entombed” (heart as vessel of love)